Against Counting the Books You Read
The number of titles you finish in a year says little about your actual reading habits.
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Last year, I read something like 40 books, not counting all of the titles I picked up and abandoned out of disinterest, the ones I half-skimmed for work, or the advance copies I read 20 pages of. Depending on your point of view, that number may seem impressive or underwhelming. It’s much higher than the average number of books read yearly by American adults, , but it feels lower than I’d like, and might be lower than you’d expect from a professional
